On Screen Time
I’m not interested in reducing my screen time.
My work — mostly writing and designing — is far easier and more efficient using a computer than it was writing or typing by hand or drafting in permanent ink on vellum — trying for (but never achieving) perfection on the first pass, so I wouldn’t have to do it all over again.
I check the weather, traffic conditions, news headlines and important emails on my phone in the morning. Altogether on a normal week, I watch one or two hours of streamed media while on the treadmill or doing laundry. My interest in what we once called television ebbed long ago. When our cable went out for a couple of weeks in 2010, we didn’t notice and decided to cancel it.
I carry a couple of dozen books on my phone that open in my Kindle app, and in my leisure time I read, mostly novels, while waiting for doctor or dentist appointments and at car service shops, in the morning before work and in the evening after cleaning the kitchen. Looking at the characters on a paper page just isn’t all that different from looking at the same characters on my phone. And the phone is less bulky to carry around.
On Customer Service
If you want good customer service, try being a good customer.
I usually receive good customer service from people working in retail settings. People tend to be polite and helpful when I’m polite and respectful. When the service is poor, it’s usually not the people I interact with who are responsible, but rather the short staffing or stress they are under. It’s not hard to show some empathy. (Most customer service problems I have experienced have been the result of poorly designed automation. I will save that observation for another time.)
In contrast, a former colleague bemoaned pervasive low quality customer service in retail at any opportunity. He took me shopping once, and from the moment we entered the store, he was condescending and rude to store staff. I was embarrassed to be with him. The service he received was far better than he deserved.
Sleep On It
It works for me.
When I encounter a problem, and I face many a day, I usually have wherewithal to solve it in real time, on my own or with any number of colleagues and collaborators. Maybe I should have named this blurb, “Work with Others.” But I frequently come up against a problem that doesn’t have an immediate solution or has many, some of which have different advantages and disadvantages. Recently, I’ve struggled with some song lyrics that say precisely what I wish them to say, but don’t evoke sufficient emotion or fit the meter or something else. Shortly after I determine that continued work will yield diminishing returns, I set the song aside and move on to something else I’m working on. Before bed, I’ll revisit the problematic song intensely before bed. Usually he next morning, the problem has transformed into ideas. In my experience, the same method works for problem circuits, structural design, prose. Exception: Social problems arising from introversion and directness apparently have no solution.